One door closes, another one opens

January 8, 2014

Comrades

Returning the toolsLaptop, blackberry, ID pass

At midnight tonight I complete my period of notice at the BBC and launch my own consultancy, WeCreate Associates Ltd, which specialises in creative leadership and innovation. It’s personally scary and exciting, all at the same time.

Why now? Well, after 22 years working for variety of big organisations and corporations I’m keen to experience what its like to work more independently and across a much broader range of industries and sectors especially as digital is forcing many of them to come up with new products, services and business models if they want to survive and thrive. For some of us in the creative sector, which has been in the vanguard of digital disruption, this may sound fairly simply. However most businesses simply don’t have the creative techniques or innovation practices to do this effectively, so at best they make incremental improvements at a time their industries are going through exponential change. Their staff may see and understand the challenges and possibilities of this moment, but all too often their fear of the challenges overpowers their optimism of the possibilities.

This was broadly the subject of my TedX Transmedia presentation in Rome, last September, which explained why broadcasters would not lead the transmedia revolution, and is the broad arena that WeCreate Associates will be operating in.

I will share my experiences here every Monday, and every Friday I will share some other peoples blogs and posts that have captured my imagination, and if you want to talk about it feel free to comment here or contact me at younge@wecreateassociates.com

My final thoughts on leaving the BBC are overwhelmingly positive and I am extremely confident it has the ability to survive the current turbulence. First it is an unique institution – creatively, journalistically and culturally. Its one of a handful of truly global brands, and the UK’s only global media brand. It’s also world beating value at just 40p per day, or a single Starbucks latte for a weeks content. It does have some issues to address including diversity in employment and services, services for the digital poor and delivering a greater range of voices across all areas of the output, but it’s road to absolute security is very simple; the quality of management and governance has to match the absolute quality and consistency of quality of the content. Tony Hall recognises that and I believe the senior management team will deliver it.

That’s it for this week, as much start-up work still to do including getting a professional web designer to rebuild my website. Have fun